


The Beginning of Something Really Excellent (Obsidian Heart Mix)

by Starcrossedsky



Series: Obsidian Heart Mix [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, backstory fic, death of a child, ishgard sucks, no sb spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 05:33:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11685108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrossedsky/pseuds/Starcrossedsky
Summary: I don't wanna be alone, sky don't let the sun go - I'm not ready for the darkness, swear upon a heartless soulThis is a story of kids and fun.(Or - Ishgard has never been a kind mother to her children. She takes, and she takes, and she takes.)





	The Beginning of Something Really Excellent (Obsidian Heart Mix)

**Author's Note:**

> If it isn't clear, the framing here is "the WoL is dreaming Fray's memories" but the WoL isn't actually involved.
> 
> Based on the lorebook backstory and the hints dropped throughout the DRK quests.

_You fall asleep, on Sid's chest on a beaten mattress in the Brume, and you **dream**._

\----

You had a name, and a friend, and that's all you can ever remember having. She was taller than you, gangly but not quite angular enough for pure Elezen blood, as fair of color as you are dark. She always led the way through the chilly ( _but not snow-bound, not yet, not for years_ ) streets of the Brume, leaving you to trail behind while she called your name.

"Fray! Come on, if you don't hurry, the soup will be cold!"

\----

Nothing else was permanent in the Brume, not for orphan children with no prospects but dying foot soldiers on the end of Dravanian claws or in some back alley. Food, clothes, adults - those all came and went.

She stayed.

Most everyone in the Brume, at least all the orphans, had more friends - you travelled in packs, loosely sorted by age foremost, then sometimes by gender and race. Boys usually lasted longer on the streets than girls. Boys with no futures dreamed of becoming knights and dragonslayers; girls wound up elsewhere. You didn't know what they dreamed of, because - 

"I want to be a knight," she said, over so many nights cuddled up close to dying embers. "Not one of the sword ones. One of the ones that makes flames go like that - "

And she'd snap her fingers, so loud even as the wind whistled overhead. "That way I never have to be cold again."

\----

( _The person who carries you on wanted to know of the goddess, if she spoke, if she disappeared. You would have wanted to know the woman, the harsh mountain orphan with a familiar dream._ )

\----

One day, you two saw a boy alone.

Well, not quite alone - he trails after that weird black-armored old knight, looking terrified of everything, one hand on the mail at the man's hip. His clothes are almost too nice for the Brume, foreign, not yet beaten into rags, except the cloak wrapped hastily around his shoulders against the chill.

You think he's just another kid, about your age, and your friend is taking a step towards him, until - 

He trips, and you see the horns on either side of his face.

You don't scream, either of you. You're Brume kids, through and through, and you know better to scream.

But she whispers to you, "He's a _monster_ ," and by unspoken agreement, you run.

\----

Word gets around, about the monster boy - whispers passed between orphans and snatched from adults. He has horns and a tail and scales all over him, black as Nidhogg himself. No one will say exactly what's wrong with his eyes, but they all agree it's something unsettling.

His skin is the color of a man dead of frostbite, and his hair is the color of ice. No one has any idea where he and the knight are living, because if they did, he'd already be dead. Probably the knight, too, no matter how many years of service he gave.

"I wanna know what his eyes look like," your friend says to you. "Before they kill him off."

You nod. "Maybe they're red and they glow in the dark," you say, imagining embers set into a person's face. Surely that's the kind of eyes someone like that would have, someone who is practically a dragon on two legs.

"Maybe," she agrees.

\----

They do glow in the dark, at least for all intents and purposes. You realize it when you see them peeping out of an alley, hidden under a stone colored hood.

Bright blue-green, they are, reflective circles set in unnatural black. Silently, you pull your friend to a stop, pointing with your elbow and your face.

She stops, and the three of you stare at each other for a moment. Then, hearing the footsteps of knights overhead, she seizes your elbow and pulls you into the alley with the monster.

"What - " you start to ask, then shut up as they pass by. Three waifs, all Brume-small, aren't what they're looking for.

"Look at him," she hisses. "He's scared. If he was a dragon, why would he be scared?"

Part of you wants to tell her that even dragons are probably scared to die, but -

Scared of knights is one thing. But when the knights are gone, he watches the two of you with just as much terror, like two skinny Brume-squeaks like you can do anything to him. She's right. If he was a dragon - 

You can punch and kick and scream for your life with the best of the Brume orphans, but if he came at you with intent to _kill_ rather than beat up, you wouldn't stand a chance. Surely his hands have claws that could rip your throat open in a single strike.

( _They don't, actually, at least not back then. His parents taught him to keep them filed away. Later, you will be the one who takes his hands in yours and makes them sharp again._ )

She's right, as much as it goes against everything you know, everything you ever thought was right.

"Fine," you say. "We'll stay. But no telling him our names."

Just in case. Child that you are, you think that that'll be enough to keep anyone from identifying you.

He isn't much less scared of you, when the knight comes back to the alley for him in an hour or so. The three of you mostly sit silently, watching each other, but you have to admit that his little camp stove is warmer than your usual alley. Your friend drifts off to sleep against your shoulder in the marginally warmer air.

The knight collects his charge and the stove, but he smiles at you as he passes by. One of the dragon boy's hands is attached to his armor again, as though afraid to let go, and you can see the patch of black scales across the back of it.

With his other hand, as he leaves, he gives you a tiny wave.

\----

Nobody seems to have noticed to actually say anything, but you're extra wary the next few days, anyway. You don't see the knight or the boy except once from a distance, and that's probably for the better, but you know they're still in the city, because everyone's still talking about it. In the world of the Brume, gossip dies even faster than heretics.

"I want to become a knight," she says. "The kind that protects people when they're scared."

\----

( _Fifteen years later you will find a tiny Elezen girl in an alley, scared, shivering. You'll elbow your best friend and point her out, and the two of you will stand in the alley between her and the world while searching knights pass overhead. Well, not quite, but in spirit, that's what you do. In practice it's a lot bloodier._ )

\----

But someone did notice. You find that out three days later, when the knights come for you.

Children don't get trials. They just get sentencing. There's always another Brume orphan to fill out the ranks when you're all grown up.

She charges them, fists swinging with all the strength she has, screaming every foul word she knows, so that you can run.

( _Part of you will never forgive her._ )

\----

After a couple hours, when you're sure the knights will be gone - one orphan isn't worth chasing after, not when they've struck the other one down as a lesson - you go back.

Her body is still lying there, her hands in tight little fists, her mouth open in a soundless forever scream. Her ragged clothes are stained with blood, where a knight's sword has opened her from shoulder to abdomen. Not even the most unfortunate of your peers will want them, now.

You stand there, shaking with something - anger. You are angry. She didn't deserve this - 

Her only crime was thinking of _him_ as a person. A scared kid, just like you.

You don't know how long you're standing there before a mailed hand lands on your shoulder. You jerk, ready to scream, even if you know it will do nothing - 

The mail is black, and the old knight's face is kind, and he doesn't try to hold you in place when you jerk away. On his other side is the dragon-boy, peering at you with those uncanny eyes. He looks like he's going to cry.

You realize that you _are_ crying, and wipe the tears furiously on your sleeve.

The knight kneels down. With gentle hands, he arranges her, closing her screaming mouth and dead-staring eyes. She will never look at _peace_ , not with the rent through her body, but - 

You hiccup, and swallow a sob. On the knight's other side, the dragon-boy folds his hands deeper into his cloak, and he says, "I'm sorry." He says, "It's all my fault," in an accent that's so foreign as to be almost unintelligible, and you want to kick and scream and punch him in his pale, scaly face, because it is and it _isn't_.

It's nobody's fault, not his or yours or hers. It's _Ishgard's_ fault.

("When we're grown up, let's leave this city behind," you remember her saying, once, over the fire.)

"Do you want to come with us?" the knight asks, and you startle, more incredulous than angry for a moment, at the answer to your thoughts. "We're going to leave the city for a while. It's not safe for Sidurgu."

Somehow it never occurred to you that the dragon-boy would have a name. You look down at - at the body, and nod furiously. The knight smiles, just an incremental bit.

"Very well, then. Do you have a name, boy?"

You hesitate, then find your voice. "It's Fray."

(Back then, you barely talked, let her do most of the speaking for you. Now you wonder how you ever survived like that, now that you've discovered how to use words to rip things up one side and down the other as effectively as any weapon.)

You glance back at the body, and tears sting your eyes again. You cannot take her with you, and it is wrong and _unfair_ that she is dead and you are living, but you can take a part, just a tiny fragment - 

"Fray Myste."

\----

( _You bury her outside the Behemoth's lair, where no one will disturb a child's eternal rest. Someday, you will be together in death -_

 _As much of you doesn't go on to live in someone else's dreams, anyway._ )


End file.
